Wednesday 14th December 2011 by Lawrence Clarke

A big thank you to all those who attended our inaugural ‘huddle’! Together we explored the findings of our first annual report on the health of online communities in membership organisations. Using the content from the report, four groups simultaneously shared their experiences, challenges and frustrations and then summarised them back to the other groups. The outputs were both enlightening and reassuring. Many recognising that they are in a very similar place.

From both the report and the discussions here are the emerging top ten tips for anyone in a membership body looking to start an online community or make better sense of the one they have:

1.    Get your onsite community to influence your organisation’s policy by involving as many as possible, especially senior management

2.    Demonstrate that the community supports increasing return on investment  in other parts of your organisation, especially member services

3.    Measure activity that can enhance daily management and measure trends that demonstrate value and return to your organisation

4.    Be seen as relevant to your members and facilitate onsite conversations linked to your assets as well as participating in social media spaces your members are frequenting

5.    Work with advocates to create content and sustain engagement

6.    If you have a LinkedIn group make sure it’s official, owned and managed by you.

7.    Make sure you have community guidelines and a social media policy that are responsive to your members’ behaviour

8.    Integrate the conversations on social media spaces with your onsite community to present  a rounded view of your interactions

9.    Anticipate reinvigorating your community significantly at least every two years

10.    Ensure you have an on-going content strategy in place to feed and nurture the conversations

The huddle demonstrated many of the best ingredients of an effective online professional community – thought-provoking content designed to stimulate debate, a great mix of professionals often working in isolation from the rest of their organisation and an environment that can’t be found elsewhere. The next logical step is to take the huddle and develop its online counterpart. We're on to it!